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  • What bike for soon to be father? (for child seat and buggy duties)
  • organic355
    Free Member

    Its a way off yet, but I was thinking when junior (who arrives in December) is ready to either sit in a child seat on a bike, sit in a tow along buggy etc i am going to need another bike. I know this is over a year away, but need to start my research 🙂

    Dont fancy sticking a child seat on by Crosslight pro 6, or pulling a buggy with my turner flux, So was thinking I should get some kind of cheap hybrid for these duties, something ideally both me and the mrs can use as we are the same height, although she has a longer top half than me.

    maybe something like a specialized cross trail or sirrus, maybe 2nd hand?

    thestabiliser
    Free Member

    use t’on one 456 tis reet and they’re cheap.

    D0NK
    Full Member

    steel frame so you don’t crimp your seat tube with the seat carrier bracket….ahem 😳

    boxfish
    Free Member

    Get something that can take 2″ tyres – they provide an extra bit of suspension for the baby seat. Cheap, 2nd hand hardtail or rigid would be my choice.

    robgclarkson
    Free Member

    Kona Ute 8) (or Surly Big Dummy/Yuba Mundo but a lot more ££)

    carry x1 child and associated child related gubbins:

    Edric64
    Free Member

    Something that takes full mudguards to keep crap off the sprog

    sparky1uk
    Free Member

    Full Rack/mudguard eyelets as above.
    Strong seat tube (Whoops Donk!)
    No cable routed down the seat tube
    No fancy dropouts. Trailers (well, my Cruzer anyway) use brackets that fit on the dropouts so any cowled ones will be a pain.

    clanton
    Free Member

    I am using my Cotic X to tow my daughter to nursery and also just on little family rides and that works well. I have disc brakes on it so plenty of stopping power. Although it does have cowled dropouts they don’t interfere with the Chariot EZ hitch – but Croozer may be different?

    I did put an mtb cassette on it so got a low gear of 34/34 which is a good thing!

    tonyd
    Full Member

    I’ve an old ’93 Cindercone with rear mudguard and pannier rack and it’s just the job. Currently has a LOCT seat for the youngest and an Islabikes trailerbike (attached to rack) for the eldest. Panniers carry footballs, picnic, etc etc.

    You can pick up P7 framesets pretty reasonably on eBay. I’d probably go for something like that.

    Edit: Here’s mine

    ransos
    Free Member

    ’93 Marin Eldridge Grade here, which is great for towing the croozer. You do need full length guards with a flap, or the back wheel will jet dirty water at the sprog.

    jam-bo
    Full Member

    I fit a weeride kangaroo on my five.

    takes a couple of minutes to install/remove.

    Garry_Lager
    Full Member

    Hamax child seat with rack is currently on my pompino, used daily for dropping the beast off at nursery, seat left there then onto work. It’s OK, but wouldn’t fancy it if it was icy – handling is a bit iffy.

    Had it on my tricross when our eldest was younger and that rode a lot better – used it for the nursery run but also loads of off-road stuff, couple of trail centres etc.

    If it was purely for recreation I’d just buy a front or rear (seat-tube mounted) child seat for the mountain bike.

    brassneck
    Full Member

    I’ve an old ’93 Cindercone with rear mudguard and pannier rack and it’s just the job. Currently has a LOCT seat for the youngest and an Islabikes trailerbike (attached to rack) for the eldest. Panniers carry footballs, picnic, etc etc.

    Had a similar Kona myself, was perfect and would still be using it were it not for the upgrade creep that happens even to utility bikes.. couldn’t get disks on it! Inbred is a good shout though, it’s what I was looking for when I bought the Kona.

    verses
    Full Member

    I bought a Kona Dew as my “sensible” bike.

    Commuting, shopping, baby-seat, tag-along etc… It even copes pretty well with the occasional bridleway.

    crankboy
    Free Member

    my old p7 with the original rigid forks for me a medium/small Raleigh mtrax for my wife.

    We have a hymax seat and mounts fitted to both bikes so one of us can drop crankbrat and seat at nursery and the other pick him up.

    The hymax suspends the child on a bent u of steel over the rear wheel so there is plenty of bounce and shock absorption. the whole lot attaches at the seat tube so I imagine that takes a lot of stress. the mounts don’t interfere with the seat tube cable run on the p7.

    tonyd
    Full Member

    ^^^ and IIRC the P7 has eyelets for mudguards and rack? That’ll give you options later when you want to buy more stuff. For example some trailerbikes mount onto a rack rather than seatpost (better IMO), and some rear seats can be rack mounted.

    Whatever you do, if you can get away with it then a dedicated bike would be better IMO than fitting/removing seats all the time. We had a WeeRide as mentioned by jam bo, removing the bar is OK but is a bit of a pain and who wants a rack and mudguards on your sunday best?!

    mrhoppy
    Full Member

    I use my Cotic x mostly for either trailer or kiddy seat duties but the Bandit and Blur 4x before that have done trailer towing. Only one that doesn’t get used is the carbon road bike.

    tinsy
    Free Member

    I used this with a Wee Ride & a trailer, was fine.

    Any old bike is fine.

    Bike no longer for sale.

    http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/fs-big-bmx-26-wheel-bmx-bike-singlespeed-klunker-pub-bike-hack

    igm
    Full Member

    Alpine 160 and a WeeRide.

    Suspension (lots of) is good for them.

    aracer
    Free Member

    I know this goes against all usual advice about n+1, but my standard answer is “the bike you already have”. Can’t see any obvious reason not to fit a seat to a Crosslight, or tow a trailer with the Turner (or indeed tow with the Crosslight, though I’m not sure how you’d fit a seat to the Turner). I’ve towed a trailer with pretty much all my bikes, including an ultralight carbon road bike, a monocoque carbon TT bike and my full-sus. The susser even has cowled dropouts, but nothing a bit of work with a file (on the tralier bracket, not the dropout!) couldn’t solve. I put a Hamax seat on a Dyna-Tech metal matrix (fancy aluminium) lightweight race bike (identical frame to what David Baker et al raced on in the early 90s), which also has a cable running down the seat tube (as does mrs aracer’s alu MTB used with a seat), but it wasn’t difficult to fit the bracket around that.

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